(The story was published in Outlook, Bangkok Post on December 2, 2010)

CHIANG MAI, Thailand – Inside one of the many sprawling orange orchards that stretch across northern Chiang Mai’s Fang district near the border with Myanmar stands a simple, one-story building with a rough concrete floor, sticks of bamboo for walls and a thatch roof. Once used by the orchard’s owner to store sacks of fertilizer and farm implements, it is now utilized for something much more precious and important – a place where migrant children can receive an education.